FreeBSD Hosting/Shared/VPS etc.

Hi guys,

I must say that it's getting harder and harder to run FreeBSD on a VPS by the day.

Digital Ocean dropped the support of FreeBSD a few days ago.
Linode support FreeBSD but still no version 13.1 ...
Vultr do not provide FreeBSD anymore. It still seems to be possible to setup FreeBSD using a custom image with an extra cost.
Scaleway do not support FreeBSD anymore.
OVH do not support FreeBSD anymore.

And if you take the page https://www.freebsd.org/commercial/isp/ most of them do not support FreeBSD anymore ....

Any thoughts ? Are we getting forced to use Google/AWS or Azure to use FreeBSD? (I am being provocative here).
 
Any thoughts ?
I still have a FreeBSD VPS at Tilaa.

A quick look at their page also shows that FreeBSD is still supported for new instances. No problems at all. Great service, great people. Based in the Netherlands.

And the last time I talked to their support team they certainly knew their way around FreeBSD and could provide detailed FreeBSD specific help/information.
 
(I am being provocative here).
And wrong

What I plan to do is drop any medium-to-small providers that stop supporting Freebsd like a hot rock. If that means I'll wind up on AWS, so be it. AWS won't notice us one way or the other, and it seems the community support there is pretty good.
 
And wrong

What I plan to do is drop any medium-to-small providers that stop supporting Freebsd like a hot rock. If that means I'll wind up on AWS, so be it. AWS won't notice us one way or the other, and it seems the community support there is pretty good.
That is true but FreeBSD is no longer available in the installable OS despite the advertising ...

It is still a concerned to see less and less provider ...
 
Hm... is this about support? What kind of support? Usually I create an image, and then I bulk that image onto the available disk, and hope that it boots. (Usually it does.)

Now concerning support: I have machines at Scaleway. Not KVM, real metal. Once I had a machine that was advertised to run FreeBSD, but there was no FreeBSD install available. So I complained to the support - not because I need the FreeBSD install, but because a man must stand to his word, and if FreeBSD install is advertised, then I expect FreeBSD install to be available. Guess what the support told me: build yourself an image and bulk it up.

No, I don't think it is a good situation. And I don't know the reason - maybe the reason is that it is generally known that FreeBSD people are skillfull and can help themselves? Or maybe FreeBSD should have better advertising?

And then there are situations where I would need support - I mean real support. For instance, since Rel. 13 my KVMs tend to occasionally just hang somewhere after the "Timecounter" line, and I don't know why. Or, at one certain provider the KVM freezes in the very moment when one closes the vncviewer. One can open and close the vncviewer to access the machine at runtime without problem, but when booting with vncviewer open, one cannot close it later. So the trick for bringing it up to productuon is: boot into singleuser, fix up everything, then enter "reboot" and immediately close the vncviewer before the boot menu is reached. Things like this should be fixed, but trying to explain that to support is beyond my acceptable frustration level...
 
I guess I must be dreaming

Screen Shot 2022-07-19 at 4.42.17 PM.png
Screen Shot 2022-07-19 at 4.43.07 PM.png
 
When Digital Ocean stopped supporting FreeBSD I went looking for alternatives. So far I've tried Amazon EC2, Arpnetworks, Linode, Vultr all of which seem to do a great job of supporting FreeBSD. I need IPV6 and there was a glitch or two along the way but in the end all four supported my FreeBSD and IPV6 needs fine.

In another thread I listed some pros and cons of the four services.

 
And then there are situations where I would need support - I mean real support. For instance, since Rel. 13 my KVMs tend to occasionally just hang somewhere after the "Timecounter" line, and I don't know why.
Ahh - that was a late arrival, after RC6: 9470a2f7da488f3c14051e39691fbfddcf2aa0fe
 
When Digital Ocean stopped supporting FreeBSD I went looking for alternatives. So far I've tried Amazon EC2, Arpnetworks, Linode, Vultr all of which seem to do a great job of supporting FreeBSD. I need IPV6 and there was a glitch or two along the way but in the end all four supported my FreeBSD and IPV6 needs fine.

In another thread I listed some pros and cons of the four services.

I prefer bare metal but when digital ocean made their announcement I deployed a bunch of em. I created backups and have had good luck converting them into new FreeBSD systems. Not really sure why they did what they did..
 
When Digital Ocean stopped supporting FreeBSD I went looking for alternatives. So far I've tried Amazon EC2, Arpnetworks, Linode, Vultr all of which seem to do a great job of supporting FreeBSD.
This is a stupid question, but how did you get Linode to work with FreeBSD? Did you upload an ISO and install it from that?
 
This is a stupid question, but how did you get Linode to work with FreeBSD? Did you upload an ISO and install it from that?
For my early installs I used this set of instructions. Basically you create two disks one of which is big enough for the USB installer image and dd it to that disk which you boot to do the installation.


Later I used the FreeBSD raw images (you have to make sure you have a gzip image) and uploaded via the images dashboard menu. I actually mounted the image on another system and customized it with my ssh keys and some other stuff but you don’t have to do that. The neat thing about this is you are not installing but just creating a virtual machine using a ‘pre-installed’ generic image that is built by FreeBSD’s new version build process. So it is a quicker way to deploy VMs. And in the case of a customized ‘golden image’ you upload it is a couple of clicks to a fully running instance so VMs on demand.

Here is where I got the image. Decompress the .raw.xz and rename and compress to .img.gz. Then upload and use.


I hope this helps.
 
For my early installs I used this set of instructions. Basically you create two disks one of which is big enough for the USB installer image and dd it to that disk which you boot to do the installation.


Later I used the FreeBSD raw images (you have to make sure you have a gzip image) and uploaded via the images dashboard menu. I actually mounted the image on another system and customized it with my ssh keys and some other stuff but you don’t have to do that. The neat thing about this is you are not installing but just creating a virtual machine using a ‘pre-installed’ generic image that is built by FreeBSD’s new version build process. So it is a quicker way to deploy VMs. And in the case of a customized ‘golden image’ you upload it is a couple of clicks to a fully running instance so VMs on demand.

Here is where I got the image. Decompress the .raw.xz and rename and compress to .img.gz. Then upload and use.


I hope this helps.
Awesome. Thank you very much. I'll try it out tomorrow.
 
For my early installs I used this set of instructions. Basically you create two disks one of which is big enough for the USB installer image and dd it to that disk which you boot to do the installation.


Later I used the FreeBSD raw images (you have to make sure you have a gzip image) and uploaded via the images dashboard menu. I actually mounted the image on another system and customized it with my ssh keys and some other stuff but you don’t have to do that. The neat thing about this is you are not installing but just creating a virtual machine using a ‘pre-installed’ generic image that is built by FreeBSD’s new version build process. So it is a quicker way to deploy VMs. And in the case of a customized ‘golden image’ you upload it is a couple of clicks to a fully running instance so VMs on demand.

Here is where I got the image. Decompress the .raw.xz and rename and compress to .img.gz. Then upload and use.


I hope this helps.
Ok, but how do you boot a non-Linux image?

I have a normal (Linux) Linode, there are 2 ways to set up boot:

1. directly with a Linode provided monolithic kernel

2. with my distribution (Debian) modular kernel in the image, via the GRUB bootloader

Over time, and especially lately, I have found [2] increasingly flakey (I try to reboot and it doesn't, it's stuck somewhere in the initramfs). So now I only do [1]. But with a FreeBSD image, I guess I'd _have_ to do [2] ? Or is there some special support for the FreeBSD bootloader? I can't find _anything_ FreeBSD related on the Linode webpages.

--
Ian
 
Ian, I don’t have anything to suggest for you for Debian as I didn’t try it. My notes above worked for me two ways to get FreeBSD running.

To your flakey reboot question, I have seen issues with a number of VM providers where a reboot from the OS doesn’t always reboot and you have to go to the VM control panel and stop and restart. I don’t know why that is. Some interaction with the OS reboot and the VM system support.

I’ve also seen a shutdown poweroff command from FreeBSD send the VM into 100% cpu usage even though FreeBSD was shutdown — perhaps some sort of CPU spin waiting for a reboot request.

Best of luck.
 
Ian, I don’t have anything to suggest for you for Debian as I didn’t try it. My notes above worked for me two ways to get FreeBSD running.

To your flakey reboot question, I have seen issues with a number of VM providers where a reboot from the OS doesn’t always reboot and you have to go to the VM control panel and stop and restart. I don’t know why that is. Some interaction with the OS reboot and the VM system support.

I’ve also seen a shutdown poweroff command from FreeBSD send the VM into 100% cpu usage even though FreeBSD was shutdown — perhaps some sort of CPU spin waiting for a reboot request.

Best of luck.
Oh, the bit about debian boot wasn't a question - just background for why I was wondering how to boot bsd.

I have now followed the separate installer image way, and it seems I'm almost there. I don't think I'll reboot this system much anyway, so maybe I can ignore that angle for now. The one thing that's _not_ working is IPv6. On the Linux system, Linode gives me an IPv6 address via SLAAC, and I can route traffic through it just fine:

Code:
 7+0 ~$ traceroute -6 -s 2600:3c01::f03c:91ff:fe93:204b google.com
traceroute to google.com (2607:f8b0:4005:810::200e), 30 hops max, 80 byte packets
 1  2600:3c01::8678:acff:fe0d:a641 (2600:3c01::8678:acff:fe0d:a641)  4.436 ms 2600:3c01::8678:acff:fe0d:79c1 (2600:3c01::8678:acff:fe0d:79c1)  0.992 ms 2600:3c01::8678:acff:fe0d:a641 (2600:3c01::8678:acff:fe0d:a641)  4.590 ms
 2  2600:3c01:3333:3::1 (2600:3c01:3333:3::1)  1.156 ms 2600:3c01:3333:4::1 (2600:3c01:3333:4::1)  1.683 ms  1.663 ms
 3  2001:418:16::100 (2001:418:16::100)  2.254 ms  2.295 ms ix-ae-67-0.tcore1.sqn-sanjose.ipv6.as6453.net (2001:5a0:1000:500::a1)  1.419 ms
 4  ae-11.r24.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (2001:418:0:2000::8d)  10.271 ms  10.242 ms  23.940 ms
 5  ae-45.r01.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (2001:418:0:2000::ce)  2.294 ms  11.148 ms  11.155 ms
 6  eqixsjc-v6.google.com (2001:504:0:1:0:1:5169:1)  2.039 ms 2001:4860:0:1::5cc4 (2001:4860:0:1::5cc4)  2.297 ms 2001:4860:0:1::1d74 (2001:4860:0:1::1d74)  1.438 ms
 7  2001:4860:0:1::60b1 (2001:4860:0:1::60b1)  2.355 ms 2001:4860:0:1007::f (2001:4860:0:1007::f)  3.054 ms 2001:4860::12:0:aaa6 (2001:4860::12:0:aaa6)  3.156 ms
 8  2001:4860:0:1::60b3 (2001:4860:0:1::60b3)  2.030 ms 2001:4860:0:1::60b1 (2001:4860:0:1::60b1)  2.597 ms nuq04s43-in-x0e.1e100.net (2607:f8b0:4005:810::200e)  2.148 ms

But the equivalent on FreeBSD:

Code:
root@beesty:~ # traceroute6 -s 2600:3c01::f03c:93ff:fea6:826c google.com
traceroute6 to google.com (2607:f8b0:4005:80c::200e) from 2600:3c01::f03c:93ff:fea6:826c, 64 hops max, 28 byte packets
 1  * * *
 2  * * *
 3  * * *
 4  * * *
 5  * * *
 6  * * *
 7  * * *
 8  * * *
 9  * * *
10  * * *
11  * * *
12  * * *
13  * * *
14  *^C

One difference in the configuration that I noticed may perhaps be the cause of this:

- Linux:

Code:
 9+0 ~$ /sbin/route -n -6 | awk ' $3 ~ /^UG/ {print $0;}'
::/0    fe80::1     UGDAe 1024 2     0 eth0

IOW, fe80::1 is the default gateway for IPv6 routing. But

- FreeBSD:

Code:
root@beesty:~ # ifconfig lo0 | grep '::1'
        inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
        inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2

So on FreeBSD fe80::1 is one of the addresses of my loopback interface! How can I prevent that? rc.conf is mostly unmodified and reads:

Code:
root@beesty:~ # cat /etc/rc.conf
clear_tmp_enable="YES"
sendmail_enable="NONE"
hostname="beesty.loosely.org"
ifconfig_vtnet0="DHCP"
ifconfig_vtnet0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
sshd_enable="YES"
# Set dumpdev to "AUTO" to enable crash dumps, "NO" to disable
dumpdev="NO"

Update: I see that Handbook recommends enabling / starting rtsold. I have done that now, but still I have the same behavior.
 
The one thing that's _not_ working is IPv6. On the Linux system, Linode gives me an IPv6 address via SLAAC, and I can route traffic through it just fine:
I contacted support at linode with this exact issue and they recommended setting the following in sysctl.conf:

net.inet6.icmp6.nd6_onlink_ns_rfc4861=1

When using the above I was able to use the std rtadv rc.conf invocation:

ifconfig_em0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
 
I contacted support at linode with this exact issue and they recommended setting the following in sysctl.conf:

net.inet6.icmp6.nd6_onlink_ns_rfc4861=1

When using the above I was able to use the std rtadv rc.conf invocation:

ifconfig_em0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"

👏 You win! This seems to have been the problem. Some questions come to mind:

1. When was it you solved this? When I talked to Linode support now, they were friendly and all but totally unwilling to say anything about FreeBSD other than "we don't support it".

2. How come Linux has no problem here? As far as I understand the situation, the default behavior of FreeBSD is because accepting the off-link router advertisements Linode sends is a security risk. Does Linux ignore the risk, or maybe it has a knob too but the default is unsafe?

3. Where can I find documentation for the FreeBSD sysctl flags? The obvious manpages only have generalities, not the purpose of specific flags.

--
Ian
 
OVH do not support FreeBSD anymore.

And if you take the page https://www.freebsd.org/commercial/isp/ most of them do not support FreeBSD anymore ....

Any thoughts ? Are we getting forced to use Google/AWS or Azure to use FreeBSD? (I am being provocative here).
Hello, I just subscribe for a KS-5 offer from OVH.

FreeBSD is no more proposed as a direct OS installation as it was in the past, nevertheless they have a BYOI (Bring Your Own Image) option allowing to install our preferred system. However, I did not find a tutorial to prepare an OS image.

I did a small tutorial on own to prepare an image : https://hpcharles.wordpress.com/202...n-on-an-ovh-ks-5-using-freebsd-13-1-via-byoi/

Just curious, has somebody a better option ?
Best
 
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